Why Washington Plays
‘Tibet Roulette’ With China
By F. William Engdahl
4-10-8
Washington has obviously decided on an ultra-high risk geopolitical game with Beijing’s by fanning the flames of violence in Tibet just at this sensitive time in their relations and on the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. It’s part of an escalating strategy of destabilization of China which has been initiated by the Bush Administration over the past months. It also includes the attempt to ignite an anti-China Saffron Revolution in the neighboring Myanmar region, bringing US-led NATO troops into Darfur where China’s oil companies are developing potentially huge oil reserves. It includes counter moves across mineral-rich Africa. And it includes strenuous efforts to turn India into a major new US forward base on the Asian sub-continent to be deployed against China, though evidence to date suggests the Indian government is being very cautious not to upset Chinese relations.
The current Tibet operation apparently got the green light in October last year when George Bush agreed to meet the Dalai Lama for the first time publicly in Washington. The President of the United States is not unaware of the high stakes of such an insult to Beijing. Bush deepened the affront to America’s largest trading partner, China, by agreeing to attend as the US Congress awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal.
The immediate expressions of support for the crimson monks of Tibet from George Bush, Condi Rice, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel most recently took on dimensions of the absurd. Ms Merkel announced she would boycott attending the August Beijing Summer Olympics as her protest at the Beijing treatment of the Tibetan monks. What her press secretary omitted is that she had not even planned to go in the first place.
She was followed by an announcement that Poland’s Prime Minister, the pro-Washington Donald Tusk, would also stay away, along with pro-US Czech President Vaclav Klaus. It is unclear whether they also hadn’t planned to go in the first place but it made for dramatic press headlines.
The recent wave of violent protests and documented attacks by Tibetan monks against Han Chinese residents began on March 10 when several hundred monks marched on Lhasa to demand release of other monks allegedly detained for celebrating the award of the US Congress’ Gold Medal last October. The monks were joined by other monks marching to protest Beijing rule on the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
The geopolitical game
As the Chinese government itself was clear to point out, the sudden eruption of anti-Chinese violence in Tibet, a new phase in the movement led by the exiled Dalai Lama, was suspiciously timed to try to put the spotlight on Beijing’s human rights record on the eve of the coming Olympics. The Beijing Olympics are an event seen in China as a major acknowledgement of the arrival of a new prosperous China on the world stage.
The article from http://www.jean-luc-melenchon.fr/?p=585
Je ne suis pas communiste chinois. Je ne le serai jamais. Mais je ne suis pas d’accord avec les manifestations en faveur du boycott des jeux olympiques. Je ne suis pas d’accord avec l’opération de Robert Ménard contre les jeux olympiques de Pékin. Je ne suis pas d’accord avec la réécriture de l’histoire de la Chine à laquelle toute cette opération donne lieu. Je ne partage pas du tout l’enthousiasme béat pour le Dalaï lama ni pour le régime qu’il incarne. Pour moi, le boycott des jeux est une agression injustifiée et insultante contre le peuple chinois. Si l’on voulait mettre en cause le régime de Pékin il fallait le faire au moment du choix de Pékin pour les jeux. Il ne fallait pas permettre à la Chine d’être candidate. Il fallait le dire en Chine. Ce qui se fait est une insulte gratuite et injustifiée contre les millions de chinois qui ont voulu et préparent activement les jeux. Pour moi il flotte un relent nauséabond de racisme sur cette marmitte !
UN PRETEXTE
Si un boycott devait être organisé, dans une logique agressive conséquente, ce n’est pas celui du sport qui est un moment d’ouverture et de fraternisation. Pourquoi pas plutôt celui des affaires et de la finance ? Naturellement aucun des activistes mondains actuels ne le propose ni n’entreprend quoi que ce soit dans ce sens. Si l’on devait vraiment se facher avec le gouvernement chinois, pourquoi le minimum de ce qui se fait dans les relations normales entre les nations ne se fait-il pas à cette occasion ? Le président de la République chinoise (combien de protestataires se soucient de savoir comment il s’appelle ?) a-t-il été approché ? Lui a -t-on demandé quelque chose ? Quoi ? Qu’a-t-il répondu ? Le premier ministre (combien se sont préoccupés de connaitre son nom ?) a-t-il été interpellé ? L’ambassadeur de Chine en France a-t-il été reçu et a-t-on eu un échange avec lui ? Qui s’en soucie ? Avec une morgue ressemblant à du racisme, on proteste contre un gouvernement dont on ne cite pas le nom des dirigeants, et dont on fait comme s’il n’existait pas. Pourquoi sinon parce qu’on pense par devers soi qu’il n’en est pas vraiment un. La superbe occidentale nie jusqu’au nom des gouvernants qui dirigent un peuple de un milliard quatre cent millions de personnes que l’on croit assez veules pour être maîtrisé par une simple police politique ! D’une façon générale je ressens, en voyant tout cela, l’écho du mépris des colons qui ont imposé en leur temps les armes à la main l’obligation pour les chinois de faire le commerce de l’opium ! Si la volonté est d’affronter le régime politique de Pékin, aucun des moyens employés n’est de nature à modifier quoi que ce soit d’autre que l’opinion occidentale déjà totalement formatée sur le sujet.
Donc les évènements du Tibet sont un prétexte. Un prétexte entièrement construit à l’usage d’un public conditionné par la répétition d’images qui visent à créé de l’évidence davantage que de la réflexion. Exemple : seule l’enquête « d’arrêt sur image » rapporte que les « évènements du Tibet » ont commencé par un pogrom de commerçants chinois par des « tibétains ». Dans quel pays au monde de tels évènements restent-ils sans suite répressive ? La vie d’un commerçant chinois a-t-elle moins de valeur que celle du manifestant « tibétain » qui l’assassine à coups de bâton dans la rue ? Bien de l’amitié pour les tibétains n’est qu’une variante nauséabonde du racisme contre les chinois. Elle se nourrit de tous les fantasmes que l’ignorance favorise. Que la répression ait été lourde est peut-être avéré. Comment l’apprécier ? Les seuls chiffres rabachés sont ceux du « gouvernement tibétain en exil ». Pourtant le gouvernement chinois, si j’ai bien entendu, annonce lui-même un nombre de blessés et de morts qui permet de comprendre qu’il y a eu une situation grave et sérieuse que les autorités admettent. Dans n’importe quelles circonstances ont essaierait de comparer les informations. On essaierait de comprendre l’enchainement des faits. Sinon autant dire que le gouvernement français de l’époque a ordonné de pousser deux jeunes dans un transformateur électrique à Clichy Sous Bois au motif qu’il avait alors une politique de main dure face aux banlieues. Personne n’oserait avancer une bêtise aussi infâme. Dans les émeutes urbaines américaines la répression a aussi la main lourde. Tout cela n’excuse rien. Mais cela permet de mettre des évènements en relation de comparaison.
UN PERSONNAGE SUSPECT
from http://dzh.mop.com/topic/readSub_8241147_0_0.html
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1 Historic review
Human right problem of China became a focal point to criticize China only after the foundation of PRC. This was based on severe ideological conflict. When china became a rising power, the western countries consider China as a strong potential enemy. Human right becomes an important civil weapon against China.
2 Malicious strategy of the US
Since the iron curtain was established after the Second World War, the US started to lead the western party, fighting for its own global strategic profit against the communistic world. After the disassembly of USSR, China became the only remaining potential enemy power against American global supremacy. The US established a malicious strategy, putting china into a dilemma.
First, the US wanted to repeat the victory against the USSR ? to force China racing on armament. To achieve this, they apply deterrent (threatening) against china with extensive military pressure. China was forced to develop its economy and military force as fast as possible. China made his best to make economic and military wonder, but the price for this ultimate efficiency was the depression of social morality, unjust and severe environmental pollution.
Then, the US used the human rights as a moral weapon. In one aspect, the human right was an effective factor to establish solidarity all over the world against china. In western world, the mentality was similar. Western people tend to pay more attention on individual rights. With this method, the whole western world, from government to people, can be united against Chinese government. In another aspect, the overflow of the criticism against human rights in china can provoke the attention of the Chinese people on the accumulating unjust. This decreases the trust of people to the government, accumulating the anti-governmental force.
The power of china is based on its united reign and stable social community. In Chinese history, none of the dynasties died because of being invaded. They died because of the unstable society, and the invasions were just catalyst. If the anti-governmental force is strong enough, the current Chinese government will be undermined, and this biggest potential enemy will be turned into a new colony of western countries. This is proven by the history.
3 Popular psychology of western people
Western culture was based on nomad culture. A very dominant feature of nomad culture is that when a tribe is strong enough, he will definitely invade other tribes to control more territories and more resources, because they will soon deplete their own resources in a limited time. This means that every rising power will be a future enemy. Actually, the history of china proved that china, based on agricultural culture, has never invaded other countries for more territories or resources. But as western people don’t understand this because of the different basis of culture, severe misunderstanding exists.
Nomad cultures believe in jungle rule, while agricultural cultures don’t. Based on this, the colonization history provides the western people an important mentality: superiority over Chinese people (as well as almost all the asian people). Because of this superiority and arrogance, they don’t want to make effort to understand asian cultures.
But the rapid development of china challenges the superiority of western people. The daily life of western people is largely dependent on China. The economy of western countries (especially Europe) is closely connected with China. Nowadays, China is independent of western countries on most high technologies. If you don’t sell a product to China, Chinese people will make it (even better ones) in a short time. If you don’t sell a resource to China, we can find enough in our huge territory. This kind of asymmetrical dependence, i.e. western countries depend on China while China is relatively independent on western countries, raised huge panic of western people.
Because of the misunderstanding of Chinese culture, western people believe that china is no more a potential enemy, but a practical enemy, an enemy against their superiority. No one wants his enemy to live happily. However, the life of western people is highly dependent on China. They don’t have enough ability to change the situation in the near future. So they dare not to see that China is already strong and prominent. They dare not to confess that they are being exceeded by China. They dare not to confess that any change on Chinese policy will deeply affect their life. They dare not to see that China is developing. In a word, they dare not to admit the fact that the former “lower class” China, is defeating them. So they have to filter out all the positive facts in China. They want to collect all the dark side of China to persuade themselves that “China is still very bad”. This ostrich psychology can only relieve themselves from panic for a short while.
The best proof is that in the 1980s, when China is still very poor, and the ideological conflict was largely relieved, there were very less criticism on human rights problems in China. When the time flies, in 1990s, there were more and more criticisms on human right problems.
4 Globalization: strike to the self-confidence of western people
It seems unbelievable, but it’s true.
A couple of years ago, Hamburg lowered the salary standard of workers. The reason was that some big companies wanted to move their factories to China, resulting tens of thousands of unemployment in Hamburg. Everyone knows that China is the world factory because we have cheaper workers. The Hamburg workers have to lower their salary in order to keep their job. This is just an example of the general lowering of salaries in all western countries. This is a natural result of globalization, because globalization makes the whole world as an entire market. But lowering the salary means lowering the living standards. Of course the western people complain. It’s very likely that they believe that China is the reason why they live worse than before.
It seems that what happened in the torch relay in Paris has stirred a flurry of controversy in some French media. “Fiasco of torch relay in Paris”, declared the headline of the daily newspaper Le Figaro. Another French newspaper, Liberation, talked about China’s “rout” in a satirical tone.
Is this the newspaper distinguished long for its professionalism and objectivity? Is this the nation which advocates civility and tolerance?
Surely, Beijing is the city that will host the Olympics; China is the country to host the Olympics. But, the French people should remember that this time Paris, as part of the torch’s route, is responsible for the Paris leg. The Paris City Hall and French Olympic Committee were meant to host to this event this time. However, the event, which should have been a joyous occasion, descended into chaos and turned out to be a pity. How can some French be unabashed enough to take delight in the scuffles?
According to French media and the opinion of various political leaders, in Paris, every citizen has a right to assemble, demonstrate, and protest. However, as many people pointed out: by trying to grab the torch and extinguish the flame, the pro-Tibet extremists were not expressing a legitimate form of demonstration and protest. They not only violated other people’s freedom, but also trampled upon the spirit of Olympics, which should be respected by people all over the world. Remember, in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, it clearly states that freedom means the right to do everything which does not harm others.
The West is trying to demonize China. Why? To ensure an upper-handed position economically, politically, and socially.
Too many harbor strong opinions about Tibet, yet know nothing more than the few slogans offered by the mass-media outlets.
The media screams:
“They killed innocent monks!” – but those “innocent” monks and other young hooligans killed innocent Chinese before a single shot was fired on them.
“The Chinese are oppressive” – do you consider freeing over 95% of Tibetans from slavery, building a state of the art infrastructure, and a new economy oppressive?
“The Chinese suppress Tibetan Buddhism” – then why have the Chinese spent a fortune restoring ancient monasteries and places of religious significance?
….
CNN’s Interview to a torch carrier
A human rights activist explains why she will carry the Olympic torch in San Francisco.
post from anti-cnn
I am Naturalized American artist and living in China with my Chinese wife, artist too, for last two years.
TIBET, from 1914 was internationally recognized as CHINA. But, unfortunately for many smaller countries, we “the westerners” can change that as we are pleased. Just look NATO. They created own puppet country. KOSOVO, that was (from 12th., Century) country of SERBIA. Today, KOSOVO is NATO’s and CIA’s “playground” (independent) territory, where they are training and preparing many terrorists for future actions to undermine other legitimate governments which doesn’t want to work with multinational corporations which in other hands trying to control FUTURE OIL MATKET (ENERGY) and are using NATO forces, under pretext of democracy.
I think that “bleeding heart democracy” should get the FACKTS before posting any comments about TIBET!
“Divine” Dalai Lama and TIBET are nothing but THE EVIL and THE HELL for own people. Shame of all these that supports 20th and 21st Centuries INQUISITION.
Also, for you that would like to read really facts, just ‘google’ name Michael Parenti or visit link: http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Dong Shan Islands (Chinese Hawaii)



I am also interested in history and know more than people in general. When writing this, I do not have any reference books so I write out of my memory. If I do a small mistake somewhere, I beg your pardon. Anyhow, I think that this gives my writing an objectivity. I am well aware of that I will be accused for this and that for writing what I think is the truth. I will be accused by those who think that they know but do not know and by those that haven’t seen by their own eyes.
Tibet was for centuries an autonomous concordat between Nepal and China. Sometimes China ruled Nepal as well. The king of Tibet used therefore to have one Chinese wife and one Nepalese and then a number of Tibetan ones. With the fifth Dalai Lama, the religious and the political power were unified under the rule of one person, The Dalai Lama. Tibet became a theocratic dictatorship and closed itself for the rest of the world. No foreigners were anymore allowed in.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the famous Swedish traveller Sven Hedin made an attempt to reach Lhasa but wa**ent politely back, out of Tibet by Dalai Lama.
A French woman, Alexandra David-Néel was more successful. She visited Lhasa dressed as a Tibetan pilgrim and she was fluent in the Tibetan language. She told how she was afraid many times that she should be discovered and then she knew that she like other suspects or opponents should “happen to fall down” from the walls of the Potala palace.
Tibet was not a paradise. Tibet was an inhuman dictatorship!
The weakened Chinese Qing Dynasty had more and more lost its influence in Tibet. Tibet became more and more interesting for the Russian empire in the north and the Britis***he south.
In 1903 a British army expedition directed by the colonel Younghusband reached Lhasa. The British lost 4 soldiers but slaughtered more the 700 Tibetans that tryed to stop them, mainly by magic. The Britis***alled “a commercial representation” in Lhasa. The Chinese evacuated Dalai Lama to the Qinghai plateau where he hade limited rights of move, probably for preventing him from having contacts with the British occupants.
I want to tell you all that not all Western people are ignorant. I am from the UK and I am appalled at the bias of the Western media. I expect it from FOX or Sky News but not from supposedly “impartial” news agencies like the BBC and CNN. Tibetans are murdering innocent Chinese people just because they live there, yet there are still pro-Tibet demonstrations in western cities. It seems that they are FOR murder? And then the Chinese police arrive and try to stop the riots, get rocks thrown at them, some badly injured or killed, and the Western media says it is a “brutal crackdown”? Tell me, what would happen if riots like this happened in the USA? Oh wait, it DID happen, the 1992 Los Angeles riots are one. AND the 1999 WTO riots in Seattle. And did the police come in riot gear and start shooting tear gas and rubber bullets? YES. And was this called a brutal crackdown? NO. We have a word for them: hypocrites. And they moan about human rights. Yet even now the people who are native to the American continent – Native Americans – are a minority. Their culture has been destroyed and they were herded like sheep into reservations. The USA invaded Iraq because God told George Bush to get more oil, and now look, millions of INNOCENT Iraqi people have been killed. Also the British Empire had millions of slaves and “colonised” (invaded) countries. What’s funny is that there are people waving around Tibetan flags in London but they don’t even know the whole story. They are ignorant, they think what they are doing is right but of course they don’t know the truth of some Tibetan’s disgusting actions because of the bias in the media. So I hope that Chinese people don’t think all Westerners are ignorant or arrogant. Some of us actually have a brain to think, and eyes to see what is really happening.
Hi all thanks for your replies! I know that China has 56 races in harmony, but what amazes me is that your country does a better job of it than mine! In the UK we have 5 races, English, Cornish, Welsh, Scottish and Irish. However if you asked any UK person, 99% of the time they would say there are only 4. This because Cornish, which is my ethnicity, is not even recognised by the government. In the census we have to say we are “Other” then write it in. But there is a box for Pakistani, Bangladeshi, etc, but no Cornish box. In our own country! The Cornish people have our own (almost dead) language, culture, history, but none of it is protected or recognised by the government. And the other UK ethnicities don’t even know about it, because the media won’t acknowledge it either. So please type 康沃尔 into the Internet and learn about the Cornish British people, because with the UK government it may soon be lost….
“I am from China. I respect you has your own story or opnion, but does any one of you hear or care our story? Check out it yourself,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2008-03/21/content_6557098.htm
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/china_lhasa_page.html
Don’t tell me that china daily is blocked in your counrty.
How can you say they are not terrorists?! They burn houses, kill Han Chinese and even Tibeten Chinese for human right?? I really can NOT understand!!
I’ve post my opinions and comments on many western websites, BBC, Times and MSNBC, but they never show up on the sites. WHY? Anyway, I will never stop!
Can anyone just Stop inoring Chinese people’s voice?
Good luck Beijing, good luck China! “
Well that’ was what I wanna say to you, and can you also answer my question?
You are so concerned about the comments on chinese website Sina.com regarding your company Times. Why don’t you just show a little bit concern or even a little bit mercy on those young lives who burn to death in Tibet?
As witnesses of the false reports from CNN, we recognize the effort CNN makes to polish its tainted image, however, we can only find the statement in its whole an evasive and vague piece trying only to make excuses. We feel pity for CNN again acting in such a dishonest and unapologetic way.
Taking a quick look at what CNN has to say, one will find CNN’s excuse for cropping picture laughable. Web based publication has great deal of freedom in presenting multimedia materials including pictures. CNN could have posted the picture in its entirety while moving text to the rest of the area without any trouble at all. Web pages are not printed materials, resizing and reframing paragraphs are virtually costless and effortless. In fact, after being attacked for cropping the picture, CNN modified the page to put a zoomed out version of the entire original photo, without having to move text format at all. Then why did CNN need to crop it in the first place? Also, CNN argues in the statement that the picture was captioned “Tibetans throw stones”, then by what motive would a rational editor crop out the exact part of people throwing stones? No excuse can possibly be found to justify the discrepancy between what CNN did and what CNN claims.
Besides, CNN’s factual mistakes are not limited to the picture or calling Tibet as a country. During its TV airing until as late as March 25th, when multiple sources had confirmed Tibet riot violent and deadly, CNN anchors repeated called Tibetan turbulence a “peaceful protest”. It was exceptionally misleading and was a major distortion of fact. Even after www.anti-CNN.com had published the mistakes of CNN and other news outlets, Lou Dobbs of CNN continued to use the same wrong descriptions in his TV program. Even an whole team of unprofessional reporters and editors would not be a strong excuse to make up for this.
CNN also repetitively refused to identify the dead as victims of the riot, and in their carefully calculated lines constantly implied that they were protesters left dead by government actions, while in fact, they were murdered by those CNN-called “peaceful protesters”.
Observing all these facts, no one could be convinced that CNN’s distortions and erroneous messages were simply editorial or technical mistakes. They are consistent and still on-going, in favor of one side of the story.
In addition, CNN has in its reports repetitively excluded Tibetan ethnics from the Chinese. This is unacceptable, or in the American term, politically incorrect. It is just similar to calling African American and Caucasian American as Blacks and American.
While the German news agency RTL had quickly acknowledged and apologized for its mistake after www.anti-cnn.com pointed it out, professionals in journalism at CNN still refuse to acknowledge mistakes to redeem trust. We have to say, the denial issued by CNN on March 28th was just a weak and pathetic attempt to weasle away from the systematic lying campaign CNN had conducted in the past weeks.
By FridayInLove Anti-cnn.com
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Pubajia, together with 4 other countries singier sing at the closing ceremony in the Special Olympic in Shanghai. He is representing Asia while the 4 othere represent the other 4 continents.